Sid Meier's Civilization VI News

Six strategy games like Civilization

So you want more games like Civilization? As the undisputed king of 4X games (for now), there are many who've tried to copy what Sid Meier created, and plenty who want to play a Civ-like experience that wasn't created by Firaxis.

Civilization games offer a unique vision of turn-based strategy where you start from humble origins, and lead a people through the ages, founding more cities, enriching your empire with cultural or technological advancements, and quite often, fighting other civilisations. It's not a historical strategy game, more of an historically-inspired sandbox, and few other games have attempted to offer the breadth that Civilization has.

While we have a dedicated list of great 4X games in general (which Civilization is on), some of you may be interested in looking for something that more closely resembles Firaxis' popular series. We decided to spin-off a separate list of games like Civilization, but we've dug up some very specific examples for this one, so don't worry about there being too much overlap. Enjoy!

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This Civilization 6 mod boosts your coastal cities with new districts and buildings

Your options for Civilization 6 coastal cities have just expanded, thanks to a new fan-made creation. A new Civ 6 mod posted on the 4X game's Steam Workshop aims to "split and expand upon the gameplay functions of the harbour district" by giving you two new districts and five new buildings to try out - and it's proving popular among the community so far.

Civ 6 fan Albro's new More Maritime: Seaside Sectors mod folds in these brand-new buildings across two new water-based districts. The first of these is an Arsenal option which is a base for naval military facilities focused on military and production and "likes unimproved sea", as the modder explains in a design document for the mod.

The Arsenal district unlocks ship building, and brings gold and production yields, and brings some neat attack and defence effects. The Arsenal lets you construct a warehouse, dry dock, and naval academy - tier one, two, and three buildings, respectively - which each bring their own neat gameplay mechanics, too, such as extra Admiral points per turn, more combat XP, and increases to strategic resource stockpiles, among others.

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These Civilization 6 civs are some of the most 'underrated' according to its fans

If you include all of the 4X game's expansions, there are 50 Civilization 6 civs to pick from. That means a whole lot of different approaches to try, strategies to master, and leaders to, well, lead with. So, it's natural that among that number there will be some strong fan favourites - especially when paired with (pretty broken) community strats - and some lesser-used and celebrated civs. The Civ 6 community has been sharing what they reckon are the strategy game's most 'underrated' civs, so now some of them can get their time in the limelight.

User ChapNotYourDaddy has put the question to the game's subreddit community, asking for its input as they'd like to try out some other civs. They offer up the Netherlands and its leader Wilhelmina as their own pick of most 'underrated' civ and leader, but 'underrated' is of course a bit of a subjective term, so there's plenty of variety in the community's answers based on their own interpretations on which civs are hot (or not).

One name that emerges in the comments is the Native American civilization of Cree, whose leader is Poundmaker and ability is Nîhithaw, which gives them some extra trade route capacity, a free trader (if they've researched pottery), and control access to some tiles surrounding their cities if a trader travels through them. User Sieve_Sixx says that the Cree aren't overpowered, but notes "their bonuses kick in early which really helps you get going", along with their versatility and fun bonuses.

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Want to beat Civilization 6 on Deity? Try these (pretty broken) community strats

When it comes to 4X game Civilization VI, there are a bunch of ways you can challenge yourself. The one-city challenge is a fun one, but a more obvious achievement is beating the legendary strategy game on its most legendary difficulty setting - Deity.

This titanic feat is going to require S-tier strats, the kind of galaxy-brained plays that epitomise every single meme you can think of, and then some. For newer players who have less experience with Civ VI's systems, it can be hard to know what those are. If you're one of those people - perhaps you picked the game up while it was stupendously cheap - you're in luck. The Civilization community is here to help with their most mad-cap strategies.

User TheFreeloader from the Civilization subreddit started a thread to collect crazy or overpowered tips, with the aim of helping "newer players who want something that will allow them to beat Deity for the first time." We've had a look at some of these, and can confirm that there are indeed some next-level plays.

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Civilization 6 is really super cheap right now - but you'll need to be quick

With the New Frontier Pass done and dusted as of earlier this year, there's never been a better time to pick up Civilization VI. The year-long run of micro-expansions and free updates - with the final April patch taking a big swing at Civ 6's civilisation balance - has left the 4X game in a pretty good state.

If you're still on the fence about it, though, even after all these years since release, perhaps an aggressively priced sales event will help you? On Steam at least, the 85% reduction is one of the best in the strategy game's five-year history, beaten only by that free weekend in July 2020. That's $8.99 / £7.49, in case you didn't want to do the math, though that's just for the base game.

Head on over to Civ VI's Steam page, and you'll see that two primary bundles are also going very cheap. The Platinum Edition - which is everything released for Civilization VI up to and including the Gathering Storm expansion - is 91% off. The recently released Civ VI Anthology - basically the Platinum collection plus everything from the New Frontier Pass - is 86% off. Whichever way you cut it, there's a deal to be had for new Civ 6 players.

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